After arriving at a destination shipping containers are frequently cut away to partially or completely faciliate unloading of the article so that they can be put in a display case or shelf for sale. The most common method for cutting open the container is with a knife or other sharp cutting tool. Unless a good deal of care is used the knife can very easily cut not only the shipping container but also cut or damage the articles contained therein. To protect the articles contained therein from this sort of damage relatively few techniques have been described in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,355,081 issued to J. Kachurchak on Nov. 28, 1967 discloses a liner strip to be used in a cardboard box. The liner strip is composed of a high strength plastic capable of resisting cutting by a knife. The liner strip is placed along the inside walls and there is some method of indicating its position on the outside container walls.
Of course the knife can be specially designed so that the cutting blade length is equal to the container wall thickness or additional perimeter pads can be inserted along the inside of the container after assembly of the container. For one example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,315,094 issued to W. A. Rehfield et al. on Mar. 30, 1943 discloses a container in which partitions are inserted to separate each of the bottles. However, these techniques have obvious drawbacks. Trying to provide a knife with a specific length blade would require a plethora of different knives for the equally numerous shipping containers with varying wall thicknesses. In addition, closely packed articles such as cereal boxes could still be cut by the knife. And finally, the addition of perimeter pads to containers adds considerable cost to each container in the form of material costs, additional assembly time and slower production rates.
An alternate method for providing some protection against accidental cutting of the articles contained in a container is to assemble the container from a blank having additional panel elements that provide double walls. Examples of this approach include U.S. Pat. No. 3,114,494 issued to P. Wasyluka on Dec. 17, 1963 which discloses a container formed from a cut and scored blank that has two complete sets of bottom walls and side walls connected by a single dividing line such that one set of bottom and side walls folds onto the other set. One set of the walls includes top closure flaps hingedly connected to the side walls as well. U.S. Pat. No. 3,730,416 issued to W. M. Pilz, III on May 1, 1973 discloses a self-locking, double-wall container assembled from a one-piece blank. The assembly of the container from the blank is relatively complex in order to accomplish the objective of being self-locking.
The Wasyluka and Pilz containers were primarily directed to providing a specialized, structurally stronger container and not necessarily to providing cut case protection. The containers are therefore not very economical for general use. Therefore, none of these containers completely solves the problem of providing integral cut case protection in an economical container formed from a unitary blank on carton assembly equipment.
It is the primary purpose of the present invention to provide a sufficient amount of cut-case protection integral with an economical container formed from a unitary blank on container assembly equipment and to thereby eliminate the need for additional perimeter pads.
A further object of the invention is to provide a container having integral cut case protection that can be stacked to create a self-standing display after removal of sections of the shipping container.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a shipping container having integral cut case protection and in addition having an additional integral divider means in the bottom of the container for additional support and separation for fragile articles and for the protection of plastic articles to prevent abrasion or scratching.